Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I have been discussing my thesis with some Value practitioners from the UK. They raise some interesting questions which I will deal with shortly, when I find the time. I have posted them here to consider, and to share.

Richard

Good to find someone being so rigorous. I'm intrigued by your findings and the way that you present them, as far as I've been able to understand them from your blog. The outlines for HBR make good sense and it is time they paid proper attention to customer value as opposed to their usual cursory nod. I hope they take them.

I have few questions and observations which I hope might stimulate a dialogue:

1.I wondered about the impact of experience with similar or competing products - or from product trials - is that embodied in attitude in your model or am I looking in the wrong place?

2.In my non-rigorous work on this I have found it useful to separate strictly social (family and peer group interactions) from network enablement (community, society) as very different motivations seem to apply. Do you make such a distinction?

3.Further I have found that fit with complementary products and services is a strong driver. I tend to refer to systemic values when exploring these issues. Your research does not seem to have thrown up this concern (or am I missing something?)

4.You identify context, or relevance, as an influence but not narrative integrity (by which I mean the story I have about myself - does this product fit with my self-perception? will it help me build the story of me?) Again anecdotally I have found this to be significant and I usually try to explore this dimension with clients. Do you accommodate such a concept?

Finally I have found it useful to categorise items like necessary tasks and complexity as costs (usually in terms such as effort and cognitive load)/. This allows me to place them on the cost side of the value equation along with price, social exposure, status risk etc. I'm not clear how you envisage the benefit / cost trade-off working. Or is this too analytical for your model?

As a further aid to my understanding I wondered how your values compare with the set of universal values identified by Schwartz and summarised in the rather fuzzy image I attach.

Great work! I'd love to read the thesis.

Best wishesD@IVM

Earlier comment from KS@IVM:

The origins of the IVM lie in the promotion of value analysis/valueengineering as originally developed by L.Miles. VM has however developedfrom those origins where the focus was on manufactured products to encompassall types of "products" and organisations. It is argued that QFD,benchmarking and lean are all developments from VM approaches. More recentlyVM has encompassed soft systems methodology and has considerable affinitywith systems thinking and concepts of the learning organisation. It is notdirectly associated with earned value. I assume from your reference thatyou are referring to what in the UK we call earned value analysis (EVA)whichlooks at the ratio between percentage costs incurred and percentageactivities complete; as opposed to economic value added(also EVA!)asproposed by Stern. I would argue that the latter involves a narrowdefinition of value, while the former is only related to value if plannedactivities can be shown to be relevant to achieving organisationalobjectives whose achievement at an organisational level underpin value.

There is in Australia an equivalent organisation to the IVM(www.value-management.com.au), and there is an Australian standard on VM.The leading VM academic in Australia is Roy Barton(RTBarton@aol.com).

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